The central bank published in December the results of its 2014 stress test into how leading lenders such as Barclays (>> Barclays PLC), HSBC (>> HSBC Holdings plc) and RBS (>> Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc) fared in a theoretical housing market crash and a sharp rise in unemployment. Some lenders have to boost their capital buffers as a result of the test.

Carney told Britain's Treasury Select Committee the IMF would be reviewing the country's financial sector this year, a periodic exercise that ends with a public report that can be critical.

"There is merit in coordinating the stress test with that process," he said, adding the IMF could provide an "independent perspective" on the methodology for this year's test.

When the results of the last test were published, the bank was criticised for not testing resilience to a slump in the second half of last year in emerging markets. HSBC and Standard Chartered (>> Standard Chartered PLC) have major activities in Asia where some of the weakness was focussed.

Martin Taylor, a former chief executive of Barclays and now an independent member of the BoE's Financial Policy Committee, told the lawmakers the Bank was designing this year's health check based on current risks, with the scenario to be published around April followed by results in the autumn.

"The chances are that as we get to the autumn, the world will be worrying about other things than what we put in the stress test," Taylor said. "We are not relying on the stress test alone for the capital resilience of the banking system."

Carney said it could be useful to have a "reverse" stress test from time to time, asking banks what scenario would it take for them to reach their minimum capital standard across the financial system.

The European Union's European Banking Authority (EBA) coordinated a bigger and more complicated test of top EU lenders last year in conjunction with the European Central Bank.

EBA Chairman Andrea Enria said in Madrid on Wednesday: "My idea is that ... in the future we should move to a yearly exercise, standard, simple, hopefully not so tense in terms of expectations around it."

(Additional reporting by Jesus Aguado in Madrid; Editing by David Holmes)

By Huw Jones